Stocks plunge, turnover lowest in 2.5 months

Just after a single session of tiny rise, Dhaka stocks plunged on Sunday, since investors opted to offload their holdings with recent corporate declarations failing to fulfill their hopes aided further by dismal earnings forecasts from the companies.

DSEX, the broad index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), plummeted 47.98 points or 0.75 per cent to settle at 6,344 versus 6,392 points in the previous trading session.

Among other indices, the DSES, the Shariah-based index, dropped 8.2 points or 0.58 per cent to 1,398, and the DS30, the blue-chip index, shed 15.39 points or 0.67 per cent to close at 2,262.

Turnover, another crucial market indicator, dropped to nearly a two-and-a-half-month low to Tk 788 crore which was also 19.2 per cent lower than the figure of Tk 975.6 crore in the previous session.

The market continued wading through choppy trading throughout the session as investors were reluctant to put fresh funds in equities, instead, they opted to minimise their losses amidst bleak expectations in the current state of the country’s economy, said EBL Securities, a stockbroker, in its daily market review.

On the sectoral front, pharma and chemicals topped the turnover chart with a contribution of 23.5 per cent to the total turnover, followed by miscellaneous (13.9 per cent) and engineering (12.6 per cent) sectors.

Almost all the sectors displayed dismal returns, out of which the jute sector suffered the most with a loss of 6.2 per cent, followed by services (4.5 per cent) and miscellaneous (2.7 per cent).

The travel sector alone displayed a 1.2 per cent gain on the premier bourse.

Out of the 388 issues traded, stocks 17 advanced, 119 scrips declined and issues 252 did not see any price movement on the trading floor of the DSE.

The port city bourse, Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE), also closed lower with its two major indices — the CSCX and the CASPI — declining by 48.8 points and 15.4 points respectively.